“More than that. Many things may change in the next months and announcements will not all be met with joy.” His voice went steely. “There should be no repeat of the events of our last soiree.”
My lips tightened involuntarily, and I knew Leo saw the small movement. I had screwed up at the first vamp shindig I worked. Werewolves had gotten in by leaping from roof to roof and busting in through the stained glass windows in the ballroom. I had since figured out how they had gotten in and placed more security cameras to cover the roof system and the walls outside the grounds, and while no one could fault me for not knowing that werewolves could leap forty feet, my security measures had still been insufficient. I nodded once, feeling a bit as I had as a kid being reprimanded by a very proper and intimidating principal.
“We have arranged for enough human warriors to keep my people peaceful and safe,” Leo said. “Derek Lee has been informed that you will be contacting him, and will need his men. There is a meeting of the full security team tonight before dusk. At the meeting, Derek will place himself and his men under your command.”
Leo always meant more than just what was said, and my eyes narrowed as I took all that in. Derek was placing himself and his men under my command? I’d gotten the impression that he’d rather eat dirt than take orders from me again. It would undoubtedly tick off the former Marine . . . which could be fun. I should bring popcorn. Wisely, I didn’t say that.
Leo turned his Frenchy black eyes to me. I felt their weight and the leashed power in him as he added, “At the gather, you will be acting as my true Enforcer.”
If I’d been in big-cat form, my pelt would have spiked up. Leo had tried to make me his true Enforcer once before. It hadn’t been a pleasant experience. But he had said, You will be acting as my true Enforcer. Acting. Not actually being. I glanced at Bruiser, who had polite interest on his face. It wasn’t the expression of a guy who had just been fired in favor of the new girl in town. But something felt wrong with all this—wrong in a “Jane is about to be hoodwinked” kinda way. And Beast didn’t like it, which was odd, because she was bound to the MOC and should be happy about anything that brought her closer to him.
To make certain that Leo was saying what I thought he was saying, I said, “I won’t permit you to force a feeding from me again.” It came out half growl, and my upper lip curled to show my teeth as Beast leaned in hard, showing her displeasure at the memory of pure predatory dominance. “I will not be bound to you against my will.” Bound more, but I wasn’t saying that part, since Leo didn’t know. “I’ll stake you or die trying.”
Leo looked away and back up quickly. In a human that might have been a tell, a physical tic that indicated stress or a lie or— “Primo. A moment of privacy, please.” Bruiser glanced from me to his boss and stood, gave a formal-looking nod that could have been a modified bow, and silently left the room. When the door shut behind him, Leo said, “I wounded you. I am sorry.”
I sat up in my chair and put my feet on the floor. “Say what?” I felt Beast pawpawpaw into the forefront of my mind, and I breathed in through my mouth, taking in the MOC’s scent. He wasn’t lying. There were no stress hormones on the air. If anything, I smelled something that might have been called meekness, if such emotions had a scent at all. Inside me, Beast chuffed with confusion and flicked her ear tabs.
“A master,” he said, studying his hands on the desk, “does not force his will upon others to feed or to bind. A master does not use violence on those under his care without need. A master, by definition of the word, should never have to resort to such methods.” His hands went flat to the table as if holding himself down, and his eyes went unfocused. As if memories carried him to places he’d rather not revisit.
“I was close to reentering devoveo when you saved me from the hands and fangs of my enemies. I had been drained, Jane. Tortured. And you freed me. To save me, my people fed me full, beyond volumes even Naturaleza might drink. They brought me both humans and Mithrans and I drank deeply, nearly draining the cattle, in order to keep me from the brink of true-death. But it was not enough. My body healed, but my mind was . . . fragile. My . . . instability . . . was not an excuse for what I did, as Americans say, but this does offer some explanation.”
My mouth had gone dry during his halting words and I had to fight to breathe slowly, but calm was far from me. I knew Leo could hear my increased heartbeat, and smell the shocked pheromones seeping through my pores, because his pupils dilated. It was a vamp predator reaction.
His control held and he went on. “Perhaps if my heir had not been recently risen from being put to earth. Perhaps if my primo had not been recently risen as Onorio. Perhaps if my Mercy Blade had not been acting upon agendas of his own, and perhaps if the priestess had not kept information from me . . .” He shrugged again, and this one was far less graceful. “Perhaps many things. I was powerful, full of the blood of my people, but I was not in control when I forced you, when I drank from you against your will and attempted to bind you. I was not myself.”
Leo raised his eyes from his hands and sat back, moving slowly, the way one predator moves in the presence of another, to not startle or give cause for attack. “Your eyes glow golden,” he said, his voice like a caress. “There is nothing in the few histories of skinwalkers that speak of such a bright glow. Yellow eyes, yes. But not this glow.”
I struggled with my heart rate, trying to keep it steady as Leo said aloud something that been my secret, mine alone, and then mine and Molly’s, for so very long. But my flesh went hot as I thought about what he might mean by the histories of skinwalkers and I had to wonder what he had discovered. What his priestess might have told him.
Leo went on. “You are different from others of your kind, I think.”
Beast’s hackles rose and I shoved down on her, feeling her slink away, her surprise as intense as my own that Leo would talk to me about all this, about any of this. But like any cat, she was also amused and delighted at the power play and at Leo’s . . . tentativeness, was the only word I could find. She sat in the back of my mind and extruded her claws, pressing them into my mind. It hurt. She intended it to.
When I didn’t respond, Leo lifted the fingers of one hand, as if throwing something to the side. “But that is of no matter. What is imperative is that I make this right. I forced a feeding. I hurt you.”
I nodded, the movements jerky. My hands gripped the upholstered arms of the chair as if to keep me in place. “When I took your blood, against your will, when I attempted to bind you against your will, I broke . . . not law, but . . . custom, perhaps. That which is custom for masters. For the forced taking of your blood, I owe you a boon,” he said, “at the very least. A great boon. You could have half of my kingdom.” He smiled, but I just stared, not acknowledging his use of scripture in the analogy. “Until such a time as you claim it, you own part of me. I am yours to command.”
“Ummm.” Yeah, that’s telling him. But really. What was I supposed to say? And You own part of me? Say what? I said instead, “But you gave blood to help Misha’s daughter Charly stay alive.”
“That was charity for one injured by Naturaleza.”
“Okay. You owe me a big honking boon. Gotcha.”
He didn’t smile. “And”—he took a breath, deeper than the ones that simply allowed him to talk; it was a human breath in its depth—“at some time in the future, when you are able”—he looked back at his hands and said in a perfectly human tone—“I would have your forgiveness.”
If one of my vamp enemies had been in the room, he could have meandered over and drained me dry, before I could react, I was so stunned. “Uhhh.”
“George and my servant whom you call Wrassler have additional information for you regarding the gather. You are dismissed.”
Like usual. But this time I didn’t even care. I stood, walked to the office door, and out into the hallway. Bruiser was waiting for me. Leo’s primo looked me over, lifted a single elegant eyebrow, and closed his mouth on whatever he was going to say. Instead Bruiser said, “You look . . . peaked.”
“Yeah.” I blew out my breath and stuck my hands deep in my pockets, my shoulders up near my ears. “I think that means I look crappy.”
Bruiser smiled, the motion slow as he took me in again, his eyes roaming almost possessively. He gestured along the hallway, indicating it was time for us to move. When we were some ten feet from Leo’s door, he said, “You do not look crappy. You look lovely.”
I shook my head but I couldn’t help the grin his words brought to my lips. I wasn’t a lovely woman by anyone’s estimation. Interesting, maybe. When I was all doodied up maybe a bit better than interesting. But never lovely, which implied more natural grace than I’d ever had and bone structure that was less strong. But I wasn’t good with compliments and so I just shrugged and followed him. Which was easy. Bruiser had, by far, the best butt I’d ever seen on anyone, and it flexed as he walked toward the front of the building.
“The boss said you have info for me?” I asked, changing the subject from me and taking my attention off his backside, to something I could converse about. Like business.
“Yes.” Bruiser’s lips pulled down into a scowl and he turned to me, tilting his head down so our eyes were on a level. “We have a Mithran missing, in a strange manner, and I have a bad feeling she is true-dead.”
“True-dead how? When you behead a vamp you have a lot of proof, most of it bloody and gory and hard to get out in the wash.”
He slanted his eyes at me again, dark humor lurking around his mouth. “Strange. Like something out of TV or film. One of Leo’s newly freed scions disappeared from her sleeping lair overnight. The only thing left was her jewelry, her clothes, and her personal items.”
“No body. No head,” I clarified.
“No. And nothing to wash out.” He smiled.
